How design makes or breaks a small business
People judge a business by how it looks before they read a word. Five places to check yours.
Customers decide whether you look trustworthy in seconds, long before they read about your prices or your service. That first impression comes mostly from design: your logo, your colours, your typefaces and how your pages and leaflets are laid out. Good design will not rescue a poor product, but poor design can sink a good one.
1. Your logo
A logo has one job: to be recognised. It should work small (on a phone screen or a social media profile picture), in one colour (on a stamp, a receipt or a van) and on a dark background. If yours only works large and in full colour, it is doing half its job.
Keep it simple. The logos people remember are usually one shape and a name.
2. Colour
Pick two or three colours and use them everywhere: signs, website, social posts, uniforms, invoices. Repetition is what makes people recognise you. Write the exact colour codes down so a printer, a web designer and a sign maker all match.
Check that text is easy to read on your colours. Light grey on white, or red on green, loses customers who have to squint.
3. Typefaces
Use one typeface for headings and one for body text, and stick to them. Mixing five fonts on one leaflet looks unplanned. Body text should be plain and easy to read at small sizes; headings can carry more personality.
4. Space
The most common mistake on small business leaflets and websites is cramming. Space around text and images is not wasted: it tells the reader where to look and makes the page feel confident. If everything is shouting, nothing is heard.
5. Consistency across everything
Customers meet you in many places: your shopfront, a search result, a delivery note, an email signature. When they all look like they come from the same business, you look established. When they all look different, you look new or disorganised, even if you have traded for years.
When to get help
If you have done all five and your materials still look home-made, it may be worth paying a designer for a small set of basics: a logo in the right file types, a colour and type guide, and templates for the things you produce most. That one-off cost usually pays for itself in materials that no longer need redoing.
This guide is general information, not professional advice. For decisions about tax, law or finance, speak to a qualified adviser.